'Heartbreaking': Visitor Accidentally Breaks Jeff Koons' 'Balloon Dog' Sculpture at Art Wynwood

Jeff Koons sculpture broke into many fragments.

(Credit: Bel-Air Fine Art Contemporary Art Galleries)

(CNN) --

Artist Jeff Koons' famous sculptures may look like they're made of balloons, but they're actually fragile, an art fair attendee discovered when she pummeled a $42,000 Koons piece Thursday, smashing it to pieces. .

A blue balloon dog sculpture created by Koons broke into small fragments when a visitor accidentally kicked the podium, according to the gallery that housed the work.

Bel-Air Fine Art exhibited the piece at its

at Art Wynwood, a contemporary art fair in Miami.

In a statement shared with CNN via email, the gallery's district director, Cédric Boero, who manages the Art Wynwood booth, told CNN that the gallery serves as "one of the official representatives of the famous balloon dog sculptures by Jeff Koons.

"Of course it's heartbreaking to see such an iconic piece destroyed," Boero said.

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He said the piece fell off after an anonymous art collector visiting the booth inadvertently kicked the pedestal during the fair's opening cocktail hour Thursday night.

Bel-Air Fine Art exhibited the sculpture at its stand at Art Wynwood in Miami.

(Credit: Bel-Air Fine Art Contemporary Art Galleries)

"The collector never intended to break the sculpture, in fact she never touched it with her hands," he said.

"It was the opening cocktail, there were a lot of people at our stand, she accidentally kicked the pedestal a little, which was enough to make the sculpture fall over."

"This kind of thing unfortunately happens, which is why the artwork was covered by insurance," he said.

The gallery shared photos of the sculpture reduced to pieces of pottery lying on the ground.

The 2021 piece was titled "Balloon Dog (Blue)" and was valued at about $42,000, according to an email from Bel-Air Fine Art. The sculpture was porcelain and measured 16 by 19 by 6.3 inches.

A total of 799 editions of the sculpture were made.

The sculpture, shown here before it was broken, was one of 799 editions created by Koons.

(Credit: Bel-Air Fine Art Contemporary Art Galleries)

Koons and Art Wynwood did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment.

Koons' balloon animal figurines are some of the most iconic—and expensive—sculptures in the contemporary art world.

His pieces have fetched staggering sums at auction: "Rabbit" (1986) sold for $91 million at Christie's New York in 2019, and "Balloon Dog (Orange)" (1994-2000) sold for $58.4 million six years earlier.

He has created hundreds of reproductions of the balloon dogs, some of them over 10 feet tall and others just over 12 inches, like the sculpture that shattered.

ArtSculptureJeff Koons